The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were the first members of the Windsor family to address the coronavirus pandemic in any way. They released a statement on their Instagram page. Kensington Palace soon followed (within hours). A day later, the Queen finally issued a statement which I found very… passive, and almost cold. A leopard doesn’t change his spots and all that, and I wasn’t expecting the Queen to come out with some touchy-feely remarks, but there was definitely an odd, distant tone to her statement. Personally, I think that’s why Richard Kay wrote that awful piece about how Harry & Meghan suck because they’re in Canada – the bulk of Kay’s piece had this sugary tone about how the Queen was unquestionably the greatest and most fearless leader ever. And it struck me that there was probably an “oh sh-t, we’re mishandling this” moment at Buckingham Palace, thus they got Kay to do some “work.”
Anyway, I bring all of this up because I’m still wondering if the Queen’s ancient, bitchy, petty courtiers are still feeling a bit like “oh sh-t, we mishandled this.” Hint: they did. So they will attempt a do-over via a televised national address from the Queen:
The Queen is planning to make a royal address to the United Kingdom about the coronavirus pandemic. As The Telegraph reports, Elizabeth II will speak to the nation in a televised speech that will take place “in the coming weeks” as the COVID-19 pandemic escalates in London, where the virus has so far infected 1,580 people and resulted in 69 deaths.
This will mark only the fourth time the monarch has given such a speech, following similar speeches in 2002 (to discuss the death of the Queen Mother), in 1997 to address the death of Princess Diana, and in 1991 to speak about the Gulf War. According to The Telegraph, news of the Queen’s upcoming address comes after she and Prince Philip left London for Windsor Castle a week ahead of schedule, which was deemed a “sensible precaution” given the severity of the outbreak in the British capital.
Meanwhile, Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla have gone to Scotland, and are expected to stay at Birkhall, his home on the Queen’s Balmoral estate “for the foreseeable future.” The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, along with children George, Charlotte and Louis, will be spending the next few weeks at Anmer Hal in Norfolk, but could return to London after the Easter holiday.
In response to a question about the Queen’s upcoming address, a palace source told The Telegraph: “It is a question of when, not if. The value of an address by the Queen is that it is so rare — it’s a case of when is the optimum time to do it. The Queen wants to get it right.” According to the source, the Queen understands the nation wants to hear from her as “head of the nation” during this time of crisis, and Buckingham Palace is currently discussing timing of the address with the British government.
The source adds the Queen is “learning to use FaceTime and Skype” in order “to receive government briefings and updates from medical experts on her iPad,” and she’ll be using her new tech savvy “to make her debut in video conferences with members of the emergency services, volunteers and charities working on the front line of the pandemic. Nothing will be ruled out to ensure Her Majesty is able to keep in touch and offer thanks and reassurance to everyone she needs to.”
On Saturday night, reports emerged that a royal aide at Buckingham Palace had tested positive for COVID-19 shortly before the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh left for Windsor.
The Queen using Skype and FaceTime to communicate with the government and medical experts… well, that’s interesting. I can’t help but wonder if sometimes people are trying to reinvent the wheel? Simple phone conversations are fine for so many things. If it’s a big document that you need to put in front of the Queen, try email, for the love of God.
As for the speech… yeah. The palace – and the government, to be fair – gets that they should have put the Queen out there sooner. By issuing a statement six days (??) after Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, the Queen looked out of touch and like she was getting sh-tty advice YET AGAIN. And again, people genuinely want to see or hear from the Queen, their unifying head of state. Oh well, the peasants will have to wait.
(Also: Charles and Camilla are quarantined in Scotland? THAT is interesting.)
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red.
She has too beacuse there are many rumors going how Philip died . Queen has do tv to show people she didnt die.
I wonder how much of this delay and bungled response is because they didn’t want to socially isolate? William was mocking people for being scared and he and Kate did a photo op. Maybe the Queen is more upset about the change to her schedule.
She was probably watching some poor serf polish her gold piano, it has to be just so! it’s protocol after all.
These people show time and again how far removed they are from the things that keep their subjects awake at night, like poverty, homelessness, and now disease. None of this will impact her so what does she really have to say that is of relevance or value to the average person.
That golden piano is the epitome of GAUCHE! The Windsors really have no taste.
Chuck and Cams are isolating because Chuck was at a dinner with Prince Albert of Monaco who has tested positive – know we know why Cain has been using his tabloid paymaster to push the ‘King Cain, first of his name coming right up’ narrative the past week.
I have a feeling that Boris will force a country wide lockdown in the next day or so and TQ addressing that nation is being used as a way to rally and calm people.
Didn’t I say she would do an address by Monday in a post last week? Still late but as bumbling as her government.
Most of us could do much better job than these palace courtiers. I think because some of these staff have been doing it for generations is why they are out of touch. Stuck in the palace bubble.
They could do with staff from mix of backgrounds including socio economic. Then someone like Meghan coming with different perspectives which aren’t exactly ground breaking- wouldn’t have felt so threatening.
do we care for her to address anything? serious question. does she know things about this virus we don’t that could be informative? idk. does her giving a speech have that gravitas to put people at ease and less restless? her addressing anything is just like those celebs singing imagine. it’s all optics and really won’t contribute anything in this time. she should just stay quiet
I would love for the queen to announce she is donating 20 million pounds at least to help her subjects.
Otherwise who cares what she has to say.
Personally I don’t care but was interested to see both republicans& monarchists asking why she hadn’t addressed the crisis so was thinking they’d have a Diana ‘where is the Queen’ moment if they weren’t careful
She’s not racking up goodwill points much at the moment, but I can’t say anything, seeing the orange blight leading my own country. “Keep calm and carry on” is infinitely preferable to the egomaniacal rants we in the US are being subjected to nonstop.
It is amazing to see the stark differences between how other royal families have been responding to this crisis. Most of the heads of states have given addresses. They have been shown working online, bringing flowers to retirement homes, writing cards or artwork for people in isolation, sharing pictures of how they are dealing with the changes to reassure people. It goes on. The BRF released a crappy statement that didn’t even mention the crisis by name and sent Will and Kate out to expose first responders. Basically nothing. I really think the BRF non response exemplifies the frustration that Meghan and Harry must have felt wanting to do things, but being told not to because of where they are in the pecking order. You can’t overshadow the heirs. This crisis has really shown that the BRF really needs to reinvent how they interact with the world. Everyone seems to be focusing on their support of people in the UK, but the BRF represents many Commonwealth countries and so far, they have not even reached out to them at all. Only Harry and Meghan have addressed the crisis from a Global perspective and the RR’s are being so critical. Guess this is telling the Commonwealth how much they are truly valued. Harry and Meghan are in a Commonwealth country and are being raked over the coals for not being in the UK. If I were a Canadian I would be taking notice of this.
No one in Canada cares about the Queen’s reaction, the Commonwealth or the Sussexes right now.
@ Maxie
If you are Canadian, then why the hell are you in this thread (Queens reaction) and all other Sussex threads then?
If you’re not Canadian, how do you know what the hell Canadians are thinking and why do you feel entitled to speak for them?
Curiouser and curiouser. 🧐
The BRF are the epitome of arrogance, they know they don’t have to do or say anything as they get away with so much crap in the UK, people ALWAYS forgive them or make excuses for them. They have no empathy and chased away the only two that did.
Then there is that twit Johnson babbling on about nothing, not being assertive enough and trying to come across as Churchill 2.0.
I know we say this almost daily here, but HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE SO BAD AT THIS.
One of the few times she gets really harsh criticism is when she is slow to act during a crisis or it seems like she’s in hiding during a crisis. How have they not figured that out after 60 years of her reign??? Give a damn TV address.
I donated a couple hundred bucks to the homeless shelter where I volunteer. I’m a retiree, don’t have a lot of money, but I just had to. How much money does that band of royal leeches have altogether? WHERE IS THE MONEE???? Why in the name of compassion haven’t they taken some of their skydillions of pounds and doled them out to homeless shelters, food banks, to a special government branch in charge of handing out cheques to those who have lost their jobs? ANYTHING! A PSA just doesn’t cut it you rich toffs.
Every other reigning monarch has managed to do this already. Except this one. Can’t stand her.
Brits mostly seem to have a blind allegiance to her, they think of her as the national grandmother, so I’m sure for many people it will make them feel better. I don’t really get peoples near-religious devotion to her, but it doesn’t seem to harm anyone. If it helps morale, that’s something.
My Queen did a live broadcast last week – and while she did say the usual things about unity, caring and compassion, she did also issue a very firm admonishment because a lot of people haven’t been good at social distancing. She was, in fact, much firmer in her language than the PM. Margrethe is actually good at this, taking the nation to task for bad behaviour in a gentle but firm language – she’s done it before regarding racism and xenophobia.
Her live speeches at New Year’s are a national institution, even young people watch them – so she does reach a lot of people and the it was actually well-received. However, she isn’t so remote and cold of demeanor as Liz.
This is because Queen Margrethe of Denmark unlike Elizabeth, is more educated than Elizabeth. She studied prehistoric archaeology at Girton College, Cambridge, during 1960–1961, political science at Aarhus University between 1961 and 1962, attended the Sorbonne in 1963, and was at the London School of Economics in 1965. She is fluent in Danish, French, English, Swedish and German, and has a limited knowledge of Faroese. And then Margrethe has a personality personality much more curious and warm than Elizabeth.
Then Margrethe was better prepared to reign than Elizabeth because the mother of the queen and her advisers who were very conservative taught Elizabeth to reign as a sovereign of the Victorian era. While the time of the empire was already in decline and that arriving at the throne of Elizabeth to mark definitively the end of the empire. And despite that, she continued to reign as a sovereign of the Victorian era without making the slightest change in its strategy.
Not to mention that she was raised and prepared by her mother Queen Ingrid who was extremely good at her job (and quite a natural at PR too). The Danish monarchy survived in part because the Law of Succession was changed since the King’s previous heir (his brother) was extremely conservative and closed off, as well as a raging alcoholic.
Elizabeth’s court seems trapped in a late Edwardian time-pocket and it does her no favours. Neither does she strike me as a curious or imaginative person, so she’s not good at adapting with the times. I think Liz really exemplifies how extreme longevity is not a good thing in a monarch. I honestly think that today’s monarchies out to emulate the Dutch model of abdication at a certain age.
The Daily Mail ran this story on Sat and I took a look at the comments and, whoa, there was very little blind allegiance to the Queen. It was primarily ANGER at her privilege, her money, questioning what she had done for the people, telling her to turn over her castles to be used as hospitals and to dig into her pockets to pay for respirators. Not that I take the Daily Mail comments as a true temp of public opinion, but it was interesting, to say the least.
Too late Liz. The DM says Bill is a stepping up as a statesman and Bill and Cathy will be the strength of the nation. Looks like Liz and Chuck have been pushed out of the way.